State officers should not be seen to defend the corrupt

The decision by the board of directors of Kenya Power to replace those in its management who were arrested at the weekend over graft allegations was swift. And it needed to be because electricity runs the country. A vacuum in power at the power firm can mean a lot of things. So many things can go wrong in so short a time if no one is in charge.

And so one can, and should, understand the show of emotion Energy Cabinet Secretary Charles Keter displayed during the press conference called to name those the board had considered fit to hold brief for those incapacitated by the renewed war on grand corruption.

LOSS OF BILLIONS

The context of the board and Mr Keter’s Monday morning extraordinary presser is that on Sunday, some 19 former and serving members of the top management of Kenya Power and Lighting Company were arrested and held in different police stations for interrogation over suspected loss of millions of shillings belonging to the company and taxpayers in general. Among those arrested, and subsequently charged in court, were former and current managing directors Ben Chumo and Ken Tarus respectively. Also held were Ms Beatrice Meso, Mr Peter Mungai, Mr Joshua Mutua, Mr Abubakar Swaleh, Mr Samuel Ndirangu, Mr Stanley Mutwiri, Mr Benson Muriithi, Mr Peter Mwicigi and Mr John Ombui, all senior managers at the power firm.

DRIFTING TO DARKNESS

One of the accusations they are facing is that they conspired with a trader in a deal that led to the loss of over Sh600 million belonging to the company. The trader has since also been arraigned.

Because those affected were people in charge of the day-to-day running of the utility firm, Mr Keter, being in charge of the company’s parent ministry and the board, had to move fast to save the country from drifting into darkness, literally. So a team headed by one Jared Othieno was named to steer the firm in the interim. It was the right thing to do to ensure that the life of the company and that of the country was not interrupted just because individual managers had been arrested.

DISGRACED MANAGERS

It was, however, the remarks by the CS before naming the interim team that seemed to say what should not been said. In what sounded like a death announcement, Mr Keter’s seemed to eulogise the “fallen” managers, complete with extolling their virtues and infallibility. He likened the exit of the Tarus-led team to the sad demise of the Zambia national football team in an air accident in 1993 saying “We have lost the best”. He told the remaining staff members, like one would a bereaved family, to “take heart”.

From the words and the countenance of the CS, one got the impression that the disgraced managers had been innocently persecuted. Mr Keter even said he wished he could take the bullet for them and become the sacrificial lamb. May be he should. In other jurisdictions, there exists a phenomenon called political responsibility and the concept of the buck stopping at some place. But that is a story for another day!

Today, let’s look at the sympathies the minister has for the fallen heroes- for that is what he wants us to believe they are.

COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY

Mr Keter is a member of the Cabinet whose head, President Uhuru Kenyatta, has made a public declaration of war against graft. Mr Keter, like all other ministers has a collective responsibility to support and be seen to support the President’s official policy. It therefore follows that Mr Keter is responsible for the war against looters of public resources. Kenya Power is one of the public corporations that Kenyans have been complaining against most loudly due to suspected pilferage, corruption and inefficiency for the longest time. Granted, it is natural justice for everyone to be presumed innocent until determined guilty by a competent court of law. But to compare the people suspected to be responsible for such public suffering to innocent heroic victims of an air crush is to be unfair to the dead and the living of both Zambia and Kenya!

TAKE EXCEPTION

The minister also seemed to take exception to the manner in which the arrest and detention of the “Power 19” was executed and appealed to those in government, like him, to be more humane in future. It’s agreeable that humaneness is a good policy to be adopted in human dealings. But the “Power 19” are not the first to fall victim to the ongoing purge against graft. We saw the “National Youth Service Two” brigade and how they were apprehended on live TV. We heard how the arresting officers made the raids. We also saw how former Planning Principal Secretary Peter Mangiti was handled at the height of NYS One. We did not hear Mr Keter complain about the inhumaneness then as we are hearing now. He was a CS for Kenyans then as he is now. Surely what is good for the goose must also be good for the gander?

PUBLIC EXPECTATIONS

The war on corruption is actually getting to the level that resonates with the expectations of the majority of Kenyans. It is clear that it is hitting where it should and the public is happy. Where there is a vice, there must be a culprit.

We are expecting to see more culprits of graft fall and we don’t expect our ministers to be defenders of the suspects. Allow the law to take its course, with limited emotions! 

Mr Cherambos comments on topical issues. [email protected]